There have been some licensing tweaks in the latest retail version of Microsoft Office that users may be surprised by and they are definitely not in your favour. It’s easy to skim through and accept the terms when you install new software but eagle eyed reporter Adam Turner of The Age confirms the drastic changes to the Office 2013 license are real and could impact many buyers who upgrade, refresh or even repair their PC hardware.

When you install your new retail copy of Microsoft Office 2013 on your computer the license is tied to that machine for its life. If your machine goes kaput or you upgrade to a new computer then you can’t reinstall this copy of Office onto the new machine, you’ll have to buy a new copy which will be then tied to that machine. This new license is a lot like the Windows OEM license, but applying it to an application suite rather than an operating system seems far less reasonable. In effect the new Office 2013 retail and OEM licenses are the same.

Here is the key difference in the Microsoft Office 2010 and Office 2013 retail licenses, as highlighted by Hot Hardware:

Column 1

0

Office 2010: “One Copy per Device. You may install one copy of the software on one device. That device is the ‘licensed device.’”

1

2

Office 2013: “One Copy per Device. The software license is permanently assigned to the device with which the software is distributed. That device is the ‘licensed device.’”

The Age reporter suggests that this licensing change is designed to push users from buying Office to subscribing to Office 365. In trying to clear up exactly what rights he had as an installer of a retail copy of Microsoft Office 2013 Turner contacted Microsoft and got the following answer; “A perpetual license of Office 2013 can only be installed on one personal computer. This means that the customer can only install it on one device, either a desktop or laptop, but not both. If the customer has a system crash, they are allowed to reinstall Office on that same computer. If there are problems with this process, customers can contact Microsoft technical support.” A later communication from Microsoft’s PR department added “No, the customer cannot transfer the license from one PC to another PC.”

So it seems like “upgrading” to Office 2013 will downgrade your license to be equivalent to an OEM one, the same is true for new buyers of retail Office 2013. However the situation remains a little unclear and Turner is still waiting for more precise answers to his queries about various circumstances when you might need to re-install Office.

When we looked at the latest Office release it was noticed that Microsoft had been a bit stingy and whereas with the 2010 edition there were 3-user home licenses available, the 2013 edition only had single-user home versions on offer. Meanwhile there are many other office productivity suites available, several of them for free, including the excellent LibreOffice 4.0 launched last week.

The most scandalous part of this deal is the sneaky way that it locks you into the Microsoft eco system: stop paying the piper his money, lose the ability to edit your documents or create new ones, since the software will got into a reduced functionality read only mode as the FAQ explains. With the previous retail versions, you could just carry on using them forever and it was up to you if you wanted to pay the money for the latest version. Wanna make a bet that if Microsoft is successful with this it will rack up the (currently low) monthly subscriptions significantly once it pulls the retail product, leaving only the rental one as a buying choice?

EDIT I need to clarify the context of this post. It relates to Office 365, which does this. It's still very much related to this Office 2013 retail licence issue though, since MS have given the retail version this awful licence to push people onto the rental version of the software. And let's make no mistake, this "subscription" or "SaaS" bullshit is nothing but another way of saying "rental", which is really what it is and sounds much less attractive, because rental costs are unlimited. Who the hell wants to rent?

The most scandalous part of this deal is the sneaky way that it locks you into the Microsoft eco system: stop paying the piper his money, lose the ability to edit your documents or create new ones, since the software will got into a reduced functionality read only mode as the FAQ explains. With the previous retail versions, you could just carry on using them forever and it was up to you if you wanted to pay the money for the latest version. Wanna make a bet that if Microsoft is successful with this it will rack up the (currently low) monthly subscriptions significantly once it pulls the retail product, leaving only the rental one as a buying choice?

Click to expand...

The "stop paying and you loose functionality" part only applies to Office 365, that isn't what we are talking about here. This thread is about Office 2013, they are two different products. You know from the beginning that Office 365 is a subscription service, so if you don't want to deal with that buy Office 2013.

As far as I understand, current OEM versions of software are all locked to the mobo only (and maybe NIC) so I'm simply suggesting that Office 2013 might be locked the same way.

Click to expand...

It has always been just the motherboard. When you upgrade the motherboard, Microsoft considers it a new computer. Everything else can be upgrade or change without an issue, you can even upgrade OS.

It might not activate online if you have to re-install after putting on a new OS, or changing out too many parts, but that is what the phone system is for. And the phone system will activate the software as long as you haven't changed your motherboard.

And before someone says "what if my motherboard dies and I have to replace it, OMG Microsoft is so stoopid for making me buy a new copy!!!11!!". They cover that scenario too. You are allowed to replace a failed motherboard as long as the new motherboard is comparable to the old. Again, this will likely require a phone call during product activation, but they will activate the software over the phone once you explain the situation.

All of this is from my experience with their OEM OSes, so I assume it will be the same for Office as well.